Ex-Leeds United footballer ‘raped woman in hotel and filmed her naked on his phone’, Doncaster Crown Court told

Simon Lenighan outside court. Picture: Ross Parry Agency

Published:12:51Updated:15:49Wednesday 14 January 2015

Share this article

Sign Up To Our Daily Newsletter

A footballer joined a friend in the rape of a young woman at a hotel room and then filmed her naked on a mobile phone, a jury at Doncaster Crown Court heard.

Simon Lenighan, 20, was a youth player with Leeds United when he is alleged to have carried out the attack with Nathan Campbell in August 2012.

Their alleged victim was naked and alone when she was woken up by a chambermaid at the Etap Hotel in Leeds the following morning and had no idea where she was or how she got there, the prosecution said.

Her mobile phone and money were missing and she alerted police who found video footage on Campbell’s mobile phone, the court was told.

Andrew Haslam, prosecuting, told Doncaster Crown Court: “When she woke up she was naked, her mobile phone and money were missing.

“We have a window into that hotel room. That window shows how the defendants treated and continued to treat her.”

Mr Haslam said the two defendants used a mobile phone to video the woman and were heard laughing as they avoided being seen on the camera.

The jury saw footage which showed the woman lying naked on a bed and intimate shots of her body.

Mr Haslam said Lenighan and Campbell met for the first time on the night of the alleged incident, August 28, as they drank in the Tiger Tiger bar in Leeds.

The woman had also been drinking in the bar and agreed to go back to the hotel, now an Ibis, with the two men.

Mr Haslam said friends were concerned for her safety because she had so much to drink, with one describing her as “very drunk”.

After they were arrested both men admitted having sex with the woman but claimed she was a willing partner.

Lenighan claimed they started to have sex but he realised she was too drunk and she said no.

He told her that he fell asleep and did not know what Campbell was doing.

Mr Haslam said: “The prosecution say that she was so drunk she could not give meaningful and proper consent.

“Drunken consent is still consent but if someone becomes so intoxicated their ability to choose can evaporate, it can be lost.”

When Nathan Campbell was arrested by police they found the video on his mobile phone.

Mr Haslam told the court the video “shows the utter contempt to whether she could consent or not”.

He added that Lenighan and Campbell knew “full well that what they did in the room was without the woman’s consent”.

Mr Haslam said their lies and shifting stories point towards this.

“Simon Lenighan is as you have hear a footballer and at the time he was on the books for the Under 18 team with Leeds United.

“Nathan Campbell was telling other people (in Tiger Tiger) he too was a footballer, he was not, he added.

When interviewed by police Lenighan described Campbell as “weird and arrogant”

“He said Campbell described himself as a professional footballer with a villa in Ripon,” said Mr Haslam.

When the woman rang Lenighan after the incident he told her that he had stopped having sex with her because she was too drunk. After hearing this, the woman said she would tell police that she had consented to what happened.

Simon Lenighan was arrested for rape and interviewed by police.

Later, when Campbell found out about Lenighan’s arrest, he sent a message to the woman on Facebook which said: “Are you serious?”

Campbell went on to phone the woman and tell her that he was a professional football player and that she was ruining his career.

He also told her about the video but assured her it was not embarrassing and he had to take it because he was a footballer and people may try and blackmail him.

Mr Haslam said: “She then started to apologise.”

Following these conversations the woman told Campbell that she would tell the police that the investigation should cease. However, Campbell was arrested.

Lenighan, of Harrogate, denies three charges of rape and one of perverting the course of justice.

Campbell, of Bradford, denies three charges of rape and one of perverting the course of justice.